JP2007531170A - Optical storage method and optical storage device - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for writing to an optical disc. By storing the control information of the program obtained by one or more optical disc writing processes in the optical disc or the allocation area, after writing and storing the control information in accordance with the standard on the optical disc is finished, the control information is controlled in accordance with the standard. Convert to information. The present invention builds a friendly interface and overcomes standard compatibility and interface design issues caused by optical disc writing, particularly real-time writing randomness.

Description

  The present invention relates to the field of optical storage, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for writing to an optical disc.

  Numerous devices for writing to optical disks, writing optical disk formats, and writing standards are described in the field of writing optical disks in conjunction with the development of optical storage technology. It is a new requirement to enable real-time recording of program information on an information medium such as a TV, such as an information recording method based on personalization.

  In order to read and use information stored easily on an optical disc, it is necessary to manage the stored program by organizing the corresponding guide files.

  For optical disc products, arrangement and design of control information for optical disc programs can be performed while editing and creating the optical disc. During the creation of the optical disc, the creator designs the flow step, writes the script, edits the user interface, separates the menu, confirms and links the menu buttons, creates subtitles, etc., and then edits the original. It is preferable to write all information on the optical disc at one time. This process can make the control information of the optical disc program compliant with the corresponding standard and have a user-friendly interface.

  However, for non-product optical discs (such as optical discs written in real time), the creation process for editing, designing and processing the information is pre-determined due to the randomness of the writing time and the uncertainty of the information size It is usually difficult to edit, create and write to an optical disc until the size of the information is large enough to meet it. For example, when writing a TV serial play that is played in one set every day or a conversation that is played at a specific time per week, or when writing a TV program that is playing according to a temporary decision, first write to the optical disc in non-real time. Unless the entire program is memorized according to the execution method for writing to an optical disc with a management file such as a guide file after writing and then editing, it is difficult to have a creation process and for the convenience of program management the last number of optical discs There is usually no possibility of writing a program as short as the minutes. Of course, the user can usually find the required program in an unordered non-systematic program snatch without editing the information that is written to the optical disc in real time. The crude interface received by the synthesizes very harmonized optical disc writing technology, especially real-time writing technology, which is currently used.

  Therefore, there is a need to provide a standard, convenient and friendly menu function, and a method and apparatus for establishing control information in a field to be written on an optical disc, particularly a field to be written on a non-product optical disc.

  The present invention provides a method and apparatus for writing an optical disc that can overcome the problems of the prior art and provide the user with a standard and user-friendly interface.

  A method for writing an optical disc according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a step of writing a selected program to an optical disc, obtaining control information of the program during this process, and a step of writing the program to the optical disc. The step of obtaining control information when it is necessary to be written on the same optical disc, the control information obtained by the program is converted into guide information or other control information conforming to the standard, and all the information that needs to be written on the same optical disc When the program is written, the method includes a step of storing the converted control information conforming to the standard on the optical disc, whereby the control information of the program conforms to the corresponding standard and has a user-friendly interface. be able to.

  An apparatus for writing an optical disc according to another embodiment of the present invention includes means for storing a program on an optical disc, means for obtaining control information of the program during the writing process, and converting the control information of the program into control information compliant with the standard. Means for converting and storing the converted control information conforming to the standard on the optical disc is provided. The apparatus for writing on the optical disc can also have an encoding means for converting an analog signal into a digital signal. The encoding means is unnecessary when the program to be written consists of a digital signal, or at standby. is there. The method and apparatus supplied by the present invention realize the conversion from the control information of the program acquired during the writing process to the control information conforming to the standard. Can be used to create and configure user friendly interfaces.

  The method and apparatus supplied by the present invention realizes the conversion from the control information of the program obtained during the writing process to the control information conforming to the standard, creates menus and guide files by personalization, etc. A friendly interface can be constructed.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent and the present invention can be understood more accurately by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and claims.
The present invention will be described in detail with reference to the examples and the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers indicate similar or corresponding features and functions in all the accompanying drawings.

  According to the method provided by the present invention, an allocated area is defined for storing the control information obtained by the program during the optical disc writing program. This allocated area can be defined on the optical disk in a storage area such as the top set of a hard disk or optical disk writing device, or in other storage media. Information stored in the allocation area is converted into control information conforming to the standard.

  FIG. 1 shows a conceptual diagram of an information storage area of an optical disc. The information storage area of the optical disc 10 includes three areas, a program storage area 20 for storing program contents, an allocation area 30 for storing control information of the program obtained while writing the program, A control information area 40 for storing a system file, a program guide file, a menu file, and other control information files of the optical disc.

  The program control information stored in the allocation area 30 is raw (unprocessed) information that has not been processed and need not be provided to the optical disk playback means for reading, and the allocation area is determined by the optical disk playback means. It can be defined by an unrecognized area, for example, an optical disc sector that cannot be recognized by the optical disc reproducing means. After the end of the writing program, the control information stored in the allocation area 30 is converted into control information conforming to the standard, and the converted control information is stored in the area 40. The conversion can be performed using a method for processing and editing the program's unprocessed control information into information that conforms to standards such as those used in conventional optical disc creation processes.

  This allocation area 30 occupies a very small part of the accessible recording area of the optical disc and does not affect the regular storage of the program on the optical disc so that it is preferred to define the allocation region of the optical disc. In this case, the program control information is stored on the same optical disc with the program content, and the user does not have to worry about the loss of program control information and searches for the original control information while converting the control information. It is very easy to do. For example, when a user travels or visits another place, another writing device of the optical disc can be used to write the program to the partially filled optical disc, and the control information of the program is lost, or There is no need to worry that it is difficult to search because it does not involve an optical disc. For example, to write TV serial play every day, if the user always uses the same writing device for the optical disc to write to one optical disc, this may be in the set-top box of the hard disc or optical disc writing device or in other storage media It is possible to define an allocation area.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram relating to an embodiment of an optical disk writing apparatus according to the present invention. For example, during the process of a writing program, such as the process of writing a broadcast TV program, the program is input to the writing device of the optical disc 50 in the form of an analog signal, and the analog signal is encoded into a digital signal by the encoding means 60. The digital signal is stored in the program recording area of the optical disc by the writing means 70.

  While writing the program on the optical disc, the acquisition means 80 acquires program control information such as the encoding type of the program signal, the address of the I frame, the bit rate of the encoded stream, the broadcast time, the initial address of the program information, etc. Are stored in the allocation area 30 of the optical disk. The control information of the program can also be acquired by the acquisition means 80 after the end of the writing program. This information acquisition procedure can be executed using control information of a program such as that used in the conventional optical disc making process.

  After the end of writing the optical disc, i.e. after the end of writing all the programs that are needed and can be written to the optical disc, control is transferred. The control information is converted into control information conforming to a standard such as the DVD or SVCD disc standard by the converting means 90, and the converted control information is written in the control information area 40 of the optical disc 10. The conversion from the control information to the guide file conforming to the control information and the standard can be performed by using a method used in the conventional optical disc making process.

  FIG. 3 shows a flow chart for an embodiment of a method for writing an optical disc according to the invention. First, the writable optical disk 10 is inserted into an optical disk writing device to start a writing program (step S110). The optical disc can be a CD-R optical disc, a DVD + R optical disc (optical disc that can be written only once), a CD-RW optical disc, or a DVD + RW optical disc (an optical disc that can be repeatedly written). The selected program is written on the optical disc according to the conventional optical disc writing method (step S120).

  Program control information generated during the writing program is obtained by the optical disk writing device and stored in the allocation area of the optical disk (step S130). The program control information includes the signal encoding type, the address of the I frame, the bit rate of the encoded stream, the broadcast time, and the initial address of the program.

  When the program writing process is completed, the optical disk writing device determines whether it is necessary to write another program on the optical disk according to the user's selection (step S140). If needed, it may be necessary to write another program at another time, for example, and steps 110-130 are repeated. When not required, that is, when all the programs that need to be written are written on the optical disc, the control information stored in the allocation area 30 is control information such as a guide file, a menu file, etc. conforming to the standard. The information to be converted into a file and converted is stored in the control information area 40 (step S150). The initial I frame or other selected I frame for each program can be converted to a standard interactive menu or the like during the conversion process.

  FIG. 4 shows a diagram of an embodiment of a DVD writing format in which programs are written according to the present invention. Area 170 covers the area from sector 0 to sector P, which is a system file area allocated by the DVD-Video standard used for storing ISO9660 system files, UDF system files, etc., where P is This is the serial number of the sector.

  Area 180 covers the area from sector P to the sector before the last logical sector (last LSN-1 sector, “Last LSN” is an abbreviation for “Last logical sector number”), which is a UDF file ( “UDF” is an abbreviation for “Universal Disk Format”) or is used to store ISO9660 standard files and program data. Program data includes program content and program control information, such as program control files, guide files, menu files, and the like.

  Sector 190 is the last logical sector. In this example, a sector after sector 120, such as the logical sector after the last logical sector 2200000, cannot be identified by the optical disc playback means, but can be used to write data by the writing device, Are suitable for the allocation areas described in more detail in

Area 200 is an area allocated to store program control information obtained during the writing process. The initial address of region 200 is close to sector 190 and can also be defined using other addresses after sector 190 with sector space held in region 200 according to requirements. The initial address of the allocation area 200 in this example is 2200001. When the writing is completed, the control information stored in the area 200 is converted into control information conforming to the standard. The control information stored in the area 200 includes video information VIDEO-TS. IFO file, audio information AUDIO-TS. IFO file, video VIDEO-TS. VOB file, VTS-01-0. All types of information control files conforming to the DVD-Video standard, such as IFO files, are converted. The ratio of the entire storage space of the optical disk allocation area 200 can be estimated as 4% using the following formula, and does not have a great influence on the writing of the optical disk.
P = (Ns−2200001)
Here, P is a ratio of the entire storage space of the allocation area of the optical disk.
Ns is the amount of the entire sector of the DVD, and in this example is 2949912.
2200001 is an initial address of the allocation area 200 in this example.

  FIG. 5 shows a diagram of an embodiment of an SVCD write format in which programs are written according to the present invention. The initial address of the program storage area 210 is 00:17:05 in this example, and other addresses can be used according to the request. Area 210 is used to store program information written in real time. Program 1 and program 2 are stored in program track 0 and program track 1, respectively. A 150 byte space between the two program tracks is required by the SVCD standard.

  The initial address of the allocation area 220 for storing the control information of the program is 00:10:18, and other addresses can be used as required. Program 1 and program control information and program 2 program control information are listed in an area 220 corresponding to program tracks 0 and 1 in the program storage area 210. The control information in the area 220 includes the data encoding type of the program encoding, the bit rate of the encoding, the first sector address of the program stream, the total playback time of the program, the size of the entire byte, the address catalog, the image of the I frame, I Contains the frame address.

  The initial address of the optical disc control information area 230 for storing basic guide information supplied in accordance with the SVCD standard is 00:02:00, and other addresses can be used as required. The control information file stored in the area 230 corresponding to the corresponding standard is an optical disc information file (INFO.SVD), a login list (ENTRIES.SVD), a list of table ID process values (LOT.SVD, ID is a reproduction series) Table mark number), playback sequence descriptor (PSD.SVD), segment playback item, search table (SEARCH DAT), and the like.

  During the writing process, the selected program is stored in the program storage area 210 of the optical disc according to the SVCD standard, and the encoded image of the I frame, the obtained program address and other control information are stored in a predetermined interval time (eg, Every 0.5 seconds). If another program needs to be written to the same optical disc, the control information of the program created during the writing process is also stored in the allocation area 220.

  When the optical disc writing is completed, the control information stored in the allocation area 220 is converted into control information conforming to the SVCD standard, and the converted information is stored in the area 230. During the conversion process, an image of the first frame in each program track or a predetermined image of the program's I frame is selected to form an interactive menu, forming a basic guide information function file and other control information files. And a user-friendly interface can be set.

The ratio of the entire storage space of the optical disk occupied by the allocation area 220 can be estimated by the following equation.
P = NM × (9 + 3 × T / 0.5) / (650 × 1024 × 1024)
Here, P is the ratio of the entire storage space of the optical disk that occupies the allocated area. NM is the amount of program tracks, T is the total playback time, and its unit is seconds.

  If there are three program tracks and the total playback time is 30 minutes, according to the previous equation, the ratio of the total storage space of the optical disk occupying the allocated area is lower than 0.005%. It is too low to affect the program storage of the optical disc.

  The method and apparatus for writing on an optical disc supplied by the present invention can store program control information according to the required standard, such as the SVCD standard, DVD-Video standard and other optical disk standards. It is suitable for the creation of optical discs, particularly for writing optical discs in real time, and for optical discs that can be repeatedly written, especially optical discs that can be written only once. According to the present invention, writing to the optical disc is not limited in time, and it is not necessary to predetermine the corresponding creation process before writing the program to guarantee a friendly and standard user interface, guide file, etc. Absent.

  Although the present invention has been described with reference to the embodiments, it is obvious that alternatives, modifications and variations can be made in accordance with the contents described above. Accordingly, all such alternatives, modifications and variations are within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

It is a conceptual diagram of the information recording area of an optical disk. 1 is a block diagram relating to an embodiment of an apparatus for writing an optical disc according to the present invention used for writing a program. FIG. 6 is a flowchart relating to an embodiment of a method for writing an optical disc according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram of a DVD writing format in which a program is written according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram of an SVCD format in which a program is written according to the present invention.

Claims (15)

A method for writing to an optical disc comprising:
(A) writing a program on the optical disc;
(B) obtaining control information of the program;
(C) converting the control information of the program into control information conforming to a standard, and storing the control information conforming to the standard on the optical disc;
A method comprising the steps of: Before the step (c), the method further includes the step of repeating the steps (a) and (b) to write another program.
The method of claim 1. Storing the program control information in the allocated area;
The method according to claim 1 or 2. The allocated area is on the optical disc,
The method of claim 3. The allocated area of the optical disc is in an area that cannot be identified by the optical disc player.
The method of claim 4. The allocation area is in a storage area of the writing device;
The method of claim 3. The allocation area is in a storage area of the hard disk of the writing device,
The method of claim 6. The allocation area is in a storage area of a set top terminal of the writing device,
The method of claim 6. The control information includes a program start address,
The method according to claim 1 or 2. The control information includes a data encoding type of the program,
The method of claim 9. The control information further includes an I frame of the image.
The method according to claim 1 or 2. The control information includes an I-frame address of the image,
The method according to claim 1 or 2. The control information includes a program start address and an image I frame,
The method according to claim 1 or 2. An apparatus for writing to an optical disc,
Means for writing a program to an optical disc;
Means for obtaining control information of the program;
Means for converting the control information of the program into control information conforming to a standard, and storing the control information conforming to the standard on an optical disc;
A device characterized by comprising: Further comprising encoding means for converting the analog signal to a digital signal;
The apparatus of claim 14.

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